


A Wave Breaking on the Shore

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Baggage, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Melancholy, Ocean, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 20:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15849240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: When the sun stops shining so brightly, make a stop by the beach to check up on it. Soonyoung and Wonwoo are figuring things out.





	A Wave Breaking on the Shore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bwoozi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwoozi/gifts).



> sweet bwoozi. my dearest beloved kokko. i am so fucking sorry that after all you have done for us this is how my stupid ass is repaying you. i am so fucking sorry that i did a HORRIBLE job following literally any of the prompt options you provided me with. vampire weekend takes me to kind of a sad place, and there's sort of a nautical element to this, so i hope you see where i'm coming from? i really do apologize that it's not at all the lighthearted fun you wanted. maybe someday i can give you the justice you deserve, but i guess that day won't be today. i hope somehow you'll be able to manage liking it anyway. endless love for you!!

By the time Soonyoung wakes up, Wonwoo is already sitting upright at the edge of the bed, bare legs dangling down to the floor. This isn’t unusual. He’s the kind of person whose brain works too quickly, too often, too hard, and that always wakes him up first, sometimes even keeps him from sleeping. Soonyoung, on the other hand, doesn’t think nearly as much as Wonwoo always says he ought to. His brain works only as much as he needs it to, only thinks when he asks. He sleeps late. Maybe something about that is the root of most of their issues.

“Morning,” Wonwoo says when he hears the telltale rustling of the duvet behind him. Even when he speaks, he doesn’t turn around. “Sleep well?”

“Just as good as ever.” For a long time, Soonyoung just eyes his back, soft bands of morning sunlight falling in ribbons over Wonwoo’s shoulders. They’re tense, just like always. “How about you?” he asks.

“Same as always.” Though he can’t see his face, Soonyoung suspects Wonwoo is smiling one of those wry smiles of his, one where his eyes don’t quite feel it. He’s about to ask something else when Wonwoo turns around, a trace of that imagined smile lingering light on his lips. “Have you made any plans yet for this weekend?”

“Plans?” Soonyoung asks, hollow. “No.” Of course not, he thinks. Lately, he never feels like making any plans at all. “Why?”

“We’re going on a trip,” Wonwoo tells him, the same exact way he reminds Soonyoung whenever he has a doctor’s appointment. Soonyoung blinks at him.

“We are?”

“You’re not forgetting anything,” Wonwoo says, comforting, bringing a hand back to rest warm over Soonyoung’s leg. His eyes want to be soft, but there’s something hazy in them holding that softness back. “We didn’t plan it.” A single soft pat more, and he draws his hand back. “Well, not together. I planned it.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

Soonyoung lowers his eyebrows. How very unlike Wonwoo to do something so spontaneous; then again, Soonyoung guesses it only seems spontaneous from his end. Something still smells fishy. “How will I know what to pack?”

“I packed for you,” Wonwoo says, extending his foot toward two healthy day bags on the floor in front of Soonyoung’s dresser. “While you were sleeping. Don’t worry about it.”

“This is basically kidnapping,” Soonyoung tells him. That little grin makes its way quietly back, and Soonyoung smiles, too.

“I can’t make you get in the car,” Wonwoo says. They look at each other for a long time after that, and Soonyoung juggles weights in his head. Something about this is so strange, and it’s sitting in the air between them like paint fumes. No matter how long he stares, Wonwoo shows no sign of averting his gaze. The sunlight coming in through the half-blinded window plays piano across his back.

“Alright,” Soonyoung says at last, sitting up and stretching his hands toward the ceiling. “I’ll get ready.”

“Good.” Wonwoo pats the covers at his sides with finality and stands up, crosses the room to pick up the bags and leave. He pauses at the door. “I put some Pop Tarts in the toaster for you.” Then he leaves. While Soonyoung tugs a shirt on over his head, a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

 

They don’t say much on the drive. All Soonyoung really wants is for Wonwoo to tell him where they’re going, but Wonwoo won’t do it, so they’re left in silence as the same Bon Jovi Greatest Hits album Wonwoo always has in his car’s CD player runs over itself on loop. They never talk these days, never anymore where they always used to. Soonyoung feels that way, at least. Wonwoo has always had a better nose for shifts in the air pressure. He’s probably felt this way twice as long.

After they stop for gas once, Wonwoo promises it’s not much longer now. Soonyoung can’t even remember how long they’ve been driving, but it feels like days more than hours. A sickly heat drifts in through the top of the window where it hasn’t quite closed since Wonwoo’s battery went out that one time, and a thin mist of sweat gathers on Soonyoung’s forehead and the back of his neck. Looking out at the scenery, he feels like he should be able to tell where they’re headed by now, but he still can’t.

“Know where we are yet?” Wonwoo asks, like he was listening in on the inner workings of Soonyoung’s mind. Soonyoung puts a little more focus into figuring it out at the question, eyes hard on the buildings that are beginning to crop up around them. Something about the color scheme is a little familiar, muted pinks and off-whites, but it doesn’t click until Wonwoo’s taken a few turns off the main road and pulled up to a small house bricked in pastel orange with a sign reading _Queen Anne_ perched out front.

“The beach?” Soonyoung guesses, and Wonwoo smiles at him.

“Very sharp.” He brings the car to a gentle stop in the road and clicks the locks on the door, then steps out into the late afternoon sunlight.

It’s been a while since Soonyoung has been out to the coast, and he closes his eyes when he gets out of the car to let the feel of the sunlight soak into his pores. A light breeze dances by, and all things considered, the weather is nice. It’s a bit hot, but there’s not much humidity, and every so often, a slight wind rushes by. It’s certainly too nice a day to spend hours cooped up in a car, but they’ve already too long crossed that bridge for Soonyoung to go back and point out its flaws. He heaves his bag from the backseat and slings it over one shoulder to follow Wonwoo inside.

An older woman greets them when they step through the door, and Wonwoo handles all the talking while Soonyoung absently surveys the room around them. The décor is very plain—wallpaper featuring pastel waves, seashell ornaments arranged carefully on the tables, the occasional painting of the ocean. It screams exactly what Soonyoung would expect if he were having a fever dream about going to the beach and getting trapped there. Lace curtains flutter like birds when another breeze rolls through, and then Wonwoo is tugging on Soonyoung’s sleeve to lead him up to their room.

From the very moment they set foot inside, the air is stuffier, and Soonyoung suspects it has a lot to do with the decoration choices. A large heart crafted from pieces of broken shells hangs on the wall above the headboard, and seafoam candles deck the end tables and dressers atop elegantly draped cloths, shy circles of white rocks surrounding them. Before he even sits on the bed, he can feel all the pairs of lovers who have ever lain in it together, see all the hazy morning gazes.

“Nice suite,” he says with a low whistle. The mattress creaks just so when he does sit on it, again when he rests his bag beside him. Wonwoo turns around and smiles at him, a little more genuine than in the morning, hands on his hips.

“You think?”

“Totally.” Soonyoung flops backward and stares at the ceiling. Perfectly smooth and perfectly white, free of stains but for a small dot of teal paint in the far right corner. He’s quiet a long minute before adding, “Very romantic.”

“You think?” Wonwoo parrots.

“Are you gonna ask me to marry you?” Soonyoung’s body shifts slightly right when Wonwoo flops on the bed beside him and heaves an unruly sigh.

“Well, if I was, you just ruined the surprise, so now I couldn’t.”

Soonyoung laughs. “Sorry.” Wonwoo punches him weakly in the shoulder.

“I wasn’t, so it’s fine,” he says, “but next time you feel like asking that, don’t.”

“So you’re going to ask soon,” Soonyoung muses. Wonwoo groans.

“Don’t start our trip by making me beat your ass,” he says. The air weighs too much on the center of their chests. What they should do is open a window, but for a long time, they don’t move.

Soonyoung knows Wonwoo would never ask to marry him if he had the feeling Soonyoung expected him to. He also knows it’s underhanded to use this method to make sure Wonwoo won’t ask any time soon. It wasn’t always this way. He used to think he’d have to bend over backwards to get Wonwoo to marry him, but the longer they date, the realer it gets, and these days he’s been wondering if it’s where they ought to go at all. Investing all this time isn’t a good excuse to stay together. Sometimes abandoning ship is the wisest move for everyone.

He doesn’t know why it’s like this. Not even a year ago, they were so much happier. Lately, there’s just something between them, some wall, ice or glass or some other impossible, invisible steel. The longer they ignore it, the harder it gets to climb, but he can’t bring it up because he doesn’t know how to be serious, and Wonwoo is always too tired to talk. Tired. That’s probably it. He’s too tired to talk, and he’s too tired to touch Soonyoung anymore, too tired even to look at him most days. He’s too tired to do anything but talk about how tired he is, lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for four hours before he can finally sleep. Yeah, Soonyoung guesses. That’s probably it.

The older they get, the smaller the world feels around them, the less air is in the room, and Wonwoo has always been so much more sensitive to it than Soonyoung is. He’s a sensitive person even though he pretends not to be. Soonyoung loves that about him. What he doesn’t love is that Wonwoo’s stress is the only thing he can be bothered to spend time thinking about anymore. It’s taking up the passenger seat and the back seat and the trunk, and Soonyoung is left on the side of the road waiting to be picked up. They haven’t slept together in four months, and he hates to let something like that get to him, but it’s starting to. Little by little, nibbling from the shoulders.

After a while, the air becomes so stifling Wonwoo gives in and rises to open a window. Soonyoung watches the incoming breeze rustle his shirt, watches the curtains lap at his arms while they blow inward with billowy softness, and takes a deeper breath than he has all day. For a long time, Wonwoo stays staring out the window, frame dark against the pale facades of the building outside. For a long time, Soonyoung just watches him.

“So,” he begins eventually, voice sounding awkward as it steps tentatively over the silence, “what now?”

Wonwoo checks his watch. “Nothing now,” he muses softly, turning around to face Soonyoung. He leans against the seafoam wall, head knocking at an angle that makes his neck look too long, accentuates the thinness in his cheeks. “You can take a nap, I guess, if you’re tired.”

“Maybe I will.” Soonyoung eyes him carefully as he worms his way back further onto the bed, toward the set of pillows resting neatly at its end. “What about you?”

“Well, you know I’m always tired,” Wonwoo tells him, pushing off the wall and crossing back to lower himself again to the mattress. “I think I’ll try to take one.” The bed sighs under him, and Soonyoung listens to the sound of their bags hitting the floor and closes his eyes.

“Sweet dreams,” he says, and he really hopes to god Wonwoo’s brain will let him have some. A large palm pats his stomach gently for a little while, stays warm in the same spot after it’s stopped moving.

“You too,” Wonwoo says. The distant sound of waves breaking washes through Soonyoung’s consciousness, drags all the sand back out with it.

 

When Soonyoung wakes up this time, the sky outside is dark already, swimming at the top with a late-burning orange that says the sun has only just set. He looks for Wonwoo at the edge of the bed first, then somewhere around the room, but doesn’t find him until he turns his head sideways on the pillow. How rare for Wonwoo to still be asleep after Soonyoung’s woken up. Even though the light is low, Soonyoung follows Wonwoo’s features with his eyes, imagines where the light would rest if it weren’t so dark. It’s not often he gets opportunities like this anymore.

The bags under his eyes seem so much heavier from this angle, dark and bruisy beneath short eyelashes, and gravity hollows his cheek worryingly where he lays his head on its side. So this is what Wonwoo looks like now. It’s been so long since Soonyoung has had the chance to look so closely. He doesn’t like it. That youthful fullness in his cheeks used to be so natural, and now it’s disappeared without a trace, and it’s worse because Soonyoung can’t even pinpoint when it started to go. He misses when Wonwoo’s sleeping face used to look like a resting smile, when his neutral expression didn’t turn the corners of his lips down so far. Bygone times, he guesses.

A sudden ringing alarm shocks him out of his skin, and before he has time to think about it, Wonwoo’s eyes snap open, and his hand digs around in his pocket for a few seconds before silence falls again. How very like Wonwoo to have an alarm set at a time like this. In the quiet, he looks back into Soonyoung’s eyes, mouth creeping gently from a line to a thin smile.

“Staring at me?” he asks.

“A little.”

“How cute.”

They’re too long in the game for that to make Soonyoung’s face color, but it still does, a healthy pink that crawls around up the shells of his ears. It must be because it’s been so long since Wonwoo’s said anything like that. When was the last time? Their anniversary? Valentine’s Day? He’s already lost track. Wonwoo’s hand is on his cheek after a moment, thumbing away that comfortable burn, though the smile on his lips still doesn’t quite look at ease.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. Soonyoung blinks.

“I guess. I only had a Pop Tart earlier.”

“Good.” With one pat to Soonyoung’s cheek, Wonwoo sits up and stretches his arms out, flexes all his fingers like he’s trying to catch something, exhales slowly. “We’re going to have dinner now,” he says, “so put on your nice clothes.”

“My nice clothes?”

“I packed them for you.”

The shirt Wonwoo picked out is one Soonyoung forgot he even owned, probably was stashed layers deep in his closet behind every coat he has to his name. It’s too nice to wear normally, especially since he doesn’t go out so much these days, which explains why it’s fallen so far into the recesses of the closet. He hasn’t seen it in months. Wonwoo must have had to dig to find it, had to remember it was in there somewhere. It feels a little stiff when Soonyoung buttons it up, tight around the shoulders the same way he remembers it.

“I forgot I had this shirt,” he muses absently, eyes forward on the wall as he pulls his pants up around his legs. Wonwoo snorts behind him.

“I could tell while I was looking for it,” he says. “It’s the nicest one you have, though. You should wear it more.”

“Why do I need to be so fancy, anyway?”

“We’re going to have dinner,” Wonwoo repeats. He’s tightening a tie around his neck when Soonyoung turns to face him, and it makes him self-conscious about his own lack of tie.

“Nice dinner?”

“Nice dinner.”

“Wow,” Soonyoung says, whistling. “We never do nice dinner anymore.” It’s been months for sure, definitely had to be before Valentine’s Day the last time they went. It was so far back, Soonyoung doesn’t even remember where they went or what he ate, and he almost always remembers those. All he can seem to drag forth now is that ugly mustard yellow tie Wonwoo was wearing.

“Well, we’re doing nice dinner now,” Wonwoo tells him. He turns around and gives Soonyoung a slow inspection before smiling, and this time he looks like he means it. Soonyoung feels a little hot around the neck. “Let’s go, then.”

Two blocks away from the bed and breakfast, the main road in town snakes through, lined on both sides with gleaming streetlamps by the time Soonyoung and Wonwoo arrive. Though it’s already dark, the temperature hasn’t gone down by much, and Soonyoung feels too stuffy in his clothes, knows there’s sweat gathering in dark circles under his arms. Lines of sweat draw slowly across Wonwoo’s back as they walk, too, and he tries hard not to stare at them, but it doesn’t stop him from nearly slamming into Wonwoo’s back when he comes to an abrupt stop and announces they’ve made it.

It smells vaguely like lemons inside, and most of the lighting comes from carefully placed candles on each table. Even when they do nice dinner, it isn’t usually somewhere this nice. Soonyoung feels out of place when Wonwoo pulls out the chair for him, when the server brings a small tray of bread and it’s fancy grain slices instead of normal soft rolls. Wonwoo eyes him while spreads a ginger layer of butter across one small square and nibbles at it like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to eat.

“How is it?” he asks. His gaze is heavy, voice deep, and Soonyoung chokes a little. He still looks so tired, but his eyes are sharp, knifing into the soft edges of Soonyoung’s face like they’re making up for lost time. They probably are. Soonyoung swallows.

“It’s good, I guess,” he says. “Kinda dry. Try some.”

Wonwoo looks like he wants to say something, lips quivering briefly, but after a moment, he silently lifts a small slice from the tray and begins buttering it. The candlelight is catching him long around the cheeks, makes him look so gaunt, a reedy specter melting into the darkness. All the usual handsomeness is still there, all those charms he’s always had, but they’ve gotten so much more difficult to spot recently. Wonwoo flicks his eyes up to Soonyoung’s face.

“You’re staring again,” he says, and Soonyoung gulps. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Do I look different to you?” he asks then, suddenly, setting his scrap of bread down on his tiny appetizer plate. Even more than before, his eyes are burning, leaving smoldering holes right where Soonyoung’s are, heavy and deep. He’s always been so good at speaking without saying anything, asking with his face, but Soonyoung doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say this time. Usually it’s so obvious.

“Different from when?”

“From any time,” he says, slow. Almost like he knows, he brings his thumb to drag around his jaw, smooths down the stubble that’s begun to crop up even though he just shaved this morning, taps his index finger just below his lips. The light flickers over his cheeks, waiting, swims through his eyes, dissipates by the time it reaches the rest of his face. Too many seconds pass by before Soonyoung can think of what to say, and that in itself is answer enough for Wonwoo. He blows out a short breath and reaches again for his bread.

“A little bit,” Soonyoung says anyway, ten beats too late, and Wonwoo grins in response, miniscule and insincere. If he asks how he looks different, Soonyoung won’t be able to answer without choking. He won’t be able to answer at all. Fortunately, though Wonwoo opens his mouth, he’s interrupted by the reappearance of their server beside the table.

It’s been so long since nice dinner that Soonyoung doesn’t even remember how to behave; not only because he’s so unused to the class of the restaurant, but also because he’s so unused to Wonwoo. When was the last time they sat across from each other like this, with nothing between them and nothing happening on the side? He can’t remember, and Wonwoo’s presence on the other end of the table is so overwhelming he can’t come up with any words to get out. If it’s always like this, he can’t do it. If just being together anymore is so hard, there’s no way he can hang on. Soonyoung realizes only as they leave the restaurant that he doesn’t remember what he ate or how it tasted.

On their way back, Wonwoo walks close by. Every now and then, his knuckles brush against the back of Soonyoung’s hand, and Soonyoung gets the feeling he’s doing it on purpose, but there’s nowhere to go from there. If Wonwoo wants to hold his hand, he should do it already. The more he waffles around, the more Soonyoung wonders whether he ought to be here at all. At least he would have a little something to cling to.

“Isn’t it pretty?” Wonwoo asks, close to his ear, as they stroll back up the avenue, passing by small crowds of others under the low lamp light. “You can sort of see the ocean down there,” he continues, pointing far into the distance, way too far for Soonyoung ever to make out.

“Great,” Soonyoung tells him. “Really.”

“Something bothering you?”

“No.” It’s ridiculous to think Wonwoo won’t see through such a plain fib. Even when Soonyoung is trying to be convincing, Wonwoo always finds him out right away. He’s got a good nose for truth, Soonyoung guesses, or maybe it’s just that he’s too easy to see through. When Wonwoo’s hand bumps into his again, he sighs. “Are you gonna hold my hand or not already? You’re driving me nuts.”

“Am I?” Without another second’s hesitation, Wonwoo takes his hand, threads their fingers together. “Sorry.” He sounds so insincere. Soonyoung hates that about him.

Hands joined, they walk the rest of the way back to the hotel in silence. Parts of Soonyoung know he should say something, know he normally would have an innumerable list of words to rattle off that’ll never stick in Wonwoo’s ear for more than a moment, but larger parts tell him he can’t muster the energy for it. The silence is uncomfortable, but forcing his lips to work when they have nothing to say is worse, verges on dishonesty. When they first started dating, Wonwoo would rub his thumb over the back of Soonyoung’s hand when they were clasped like this, but now he doesn’t do it. Soonyoung despises how much he misses that.

The quiet persists when they arrive back at the hotel room, rippling around the sound of Wonwoo’s belt dropping to the floor, his shoes being kicked into the legs of their arm chair. Soonyoung listens as he undresses to the sound of the mattress creaking and the comforter rustling and then nothing at all, and he wonders if Wonwoo will already be asleep by the time he turns around. It would be good for him, probably, if he could get some sleep. Maybe it would be good for Soonyoung too. Wonwoo blinks up at him tiredly when at last he faces the bed.

“You’re awake,” Soonyoung says, not bothering to hide his surprise. Wonwoo smiles at him, lazy, weary. “Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m always tired.” He pats the section of mattress he’s flipped back the duvet to expose, smooths the sheets out with his palm. “Hurry up and get in.”

“I thought you would be asleep already.” The mattress groans when Soonyoung eases a knee onto it, again when he stretches to turn off the bedside lamp and bathe them in darkness. Wonwoo heaves a sigh that dusts over the notches of his spine.

“You should know by now I never fall asleep before you do.”

The air rests atop them before Soonyoung senses a motion coming up behind him. Wonwoo’s hands shock his waist, a dull thirty thousand volt rush that numbs his entire lower body. Soonyoung wonders whether he’s just dreaming, but Wonwoo’s arms pull tighter still around him, elbows digging heavy in the crooks above his hips. The pressure on his sides, the warmth on his back—it all feels so mush stranger than it used to. His lungs are tight when he exhales.

“You want to cuddle?” he asks.

“I feel like it’s been a while,” Wonwoo tells him.

It has been a while, and Soonyoung knows it. It’s been years, eons, so long it doesn’t even feel comfortable anymore. When he breathes, Wonwoo’s arms are twin snakes wrapped around each lung, fingertips hooks that dig right between the ribs. He remembers liking this so much more.

“It’s hot,” he complains, but Wonwoo doesn’t relent.

“Just deal with it,” he says. “We’re on vacation.”

“Alright.”

Normally, Soonyoung would argue a little more, but he hasn’t got the heart for it right now. Kicking his legs a little under the covers, he tries to settle back in the same way he always has, let his body go limp and melt into Wonwoo’s, but he can’t do it. The breathing behind his ear is too loud and uneven, the ankles between his too bony. He wishes Wonwoo would fall asleep already so he could think in silence. It would be so nice for Wonwoo, too, if he could really fall asleep for once, if those bags under his eyes could lighten just one shade. He wishes so badly that he could give that to Wonwoo, that it was still his greatest goal to see that face curl into a grin. More than anything, though, he wishes it weren’t so hot.

 

Just like always, Wonwoo is awake before him in the morning. Vacation doesn’t change anything. He sits at the edge of the bed with the same posture as ever, feet hanging to the ground, back facing Soonyoung. The only difference now is the sweat that still clings uncomfortably to Soonyoung’s back and the thousand pounds of lead that have bloomed in his chest overnight. Wonwoo seems to turn and look at him through a veil of blue light, eyes cloudy, and Soonyoung can’t tell if the bags have started looking any better.

“You’re up already,” Soonyoung says, twisting his hands in the sheets.

“Don’t act surprised,” Wonwoo chuckles at him. His fingers drum at the mattress in neat rhythm, just a touch frantic, mixed with drops of nerves. Soonyoung is relieved at least that he can still tell small things like that. Maybe it means they have some hope left between them. “Did you sleep well?”

“You know I always sleep fine.” For a minute, the air hangs noiseless, weighed down by a question that’s no longer worth asking. Far off, outside the cracked window, Soonyoung can hear the sound of a wave breaking on the shore. “How about you?”

Wonwoo smiles at him, just a little. “Like shit,” he says, bending his elbows in a halfhearted stretch. Before Soonyoung answers, he adds, “But better.” Soonyoung blinks back at him slowly, stirring that bizarre tone of voice around in his ears. “Better than usual.”

“That’s good,” Soonyoung tells him after a while, pulling himself upright. It is good. It’s all he wants for Wonwoo to be able to sleep well again. Something about it still makes him feel a little dizzy.

“Want to guess what we’re doing today?”

“Going to the beach?” Soonyoung hazards. Wonwoo’s eyes twinkle back at him with dull fluorescence.

“Close,” he says.

“So we’re not?” Soonyoung sighs. “Why are we at the beach if we’re not going to the beach?”

“Is that whining I hear?” His tone is playful enough, but Soonyoung detects just a touch of seriousness beneath it, the hard hidden ridge of a mossy cliff. He doesn’t want to step over it on such uncertain feet.

“Nope.” He watches Wonwoo watch his hesitation, sees the little lights in his eyes dim further, the thin smile wane. It’s a tightrope walk now, and he’s even less sure of his footing, but he’s got to fudge it until he can get to the other side. “What are we doing, then?”

“You’ll see.” Wonwoo’s voice is devoid of most of its humor now, and Soonyoung knows it’s his fault, but even if he were to go back, he wouldn’t know how to retrace those few short steps. With soft palms, Wonwoo pats the sheets beneath him and rises to his feet, kicks on his shoes by the door. “Hurry and get ready.”

“What about breakfast?”

“Aren’t you dying in anticipation of what I planned?” Wonwoo scoffs. “There’s no time for breakfast.”

Normally, Soonyoung would be dying in anticipation. Of course he still wants to know. What throws him off is that Wonwoo is usually the one who insists on eating breakfast first, on doing everything in order and exactly to the T, and he realizes that maybe that’s why he’s felt such a strange sort of vertigo ever since he woke up yesterday. Maybe it’s because Wonwoo’s not acting like Wonwoo that Soonyoung has suddenly begun to, or maybe it’s because Soonyoung stopped acting like himself long ago that Wonwoo decided he needed to fill the role. As Soonyoung pulls a shirt on, his stomach tenses. This is going somewhere, but he’s not at the helm anymore, and Wonwoo so rarely shows him the map.

When they leave, they certainly head the direction of the beach, but just as they’re about to hit the sand, Wonwoo leads them directly sideways, toward a nice row of buildings and a rocky wave breaker stretching up the shoreline. Clouds float in round puffs above them, suspended jellyfish, and Soonyoung stares up at them until he feels like his feet aren’t touching the ground anymore, like his hand isn’t holding Wonwoo’s. But his hand is holding Wonwoo’s, and he didn’t even notice. He should have noticed.

Hands still linked, they make another turn to head down a wooden dock, and Soonyoung tries this time to keep his thoughts on the ground with him. The sound of waves crashing is loud around them yet also hard to hear, impossible to separate fully from the turn of Soonyoung’s mind inside his head. White boats toward the end of the dock reflect sharp light into his eyes, and Soonyoung gets so busy blinking the glare away that he fails to notice when Wonwoo stops in front of one of those very boats and squeezes his hand a little tighter.

“Here,” Wonwoo says when Soonyoung runs into his shoulder full speed, banging his chin on the side of Wonwoo’s arm.

“A boat?” he asks, squinting. Wonwoo smiles.

“Good catch, detective.”

“Are we getting on this?”

“Sharp as always this morning.”

Wonwoo moves forward, taking careful steps down onto the small deck, and it’s then that he releases his hold on Soonyoung’s wrist. Soonyoung notices how clammy his palm is while he steps gingerly onto the boat, stomach going light at the rocking sensation between his feet, the unsteadiness. It’s been a long time since physical affection has made him feel so young and nervous, and realizing he’s now alone with Wonwoo over nothing but water doesn’t help it. It shouldn’t bother him. They’re always alone together. Something about the deep blue water swirling beneath them swirls his core with it.

It’s a small boat, the sort of jet-propelled kind rich people haul behind their luxury sedans to their private marinas for who knows what. Soonyoung drags a hand over the shiny paneling, noting the way clouds reflect clearly on the dark wood, and when he looks up, he sees Wonwoo waiting patiently behind the ship’s wheel, eyes aimed straight back at him.

“Are you smudging fingerprints all over it?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“No,” Soonyoung lies, lifting his palm and wiping it on his shorts. Wonwoo grins.

“It’s a rental, so I don’t care.”

“A rental?” He takes a second look at Wonwoo to really take in the wheel, tries to process the shape of him there. Somehow, his brain keeps coming up empty. “Don’t tell me you’re driving this thing.”

“What’s the problem with that?” Wonwoo asks, feigning offense and turning to look out at the ocean sprawling before them.

“Uh, you don’t have a boating license? Isn’t that illegal?”

“In this state, I don’t need one.” He throws a glance back over his shoulder, lips looking like they want to smile but not quite mustering it. “Why are you so concerned with the law all of a sudden?”

“I don’t want to drown, maybe,” Soonyoung tells him. Wonwoo scoffs, like drowning is a stupid thing to worry about it. Soonyoung thinks he should be a little more worried about it.

“What, so you don’t trust me?” Soonyoung wants to say that he does trust him, of course, but his jaw locks. The words don’t make it out in time, don’t even get a head start, and Wonwoo is already turning back around. “I took a boating safety course,” he says, hushed by a passing gust of wind.

“When?”

“Last month. I went to the DMV after work every Tuesday.”

“You did?”

“I was two hours later than usual,” Wonwoo tells him, and pieces of him sound broken off. Soonyoung tries to remember anything like that, but he can’t. Maybe he was always working Tuesday nights, he supposes, but he knows that can’t be it. Walking up to take the seat at Wonwoo’s side, he hears a sigh. “I could tell you didn’t notice.”

Soonyoung wants to apologize, but he doesn’t. Somewhere, he stopped noticing things, the same way he used to peck at Wonwoo for doing. He stopped noticing that he wasn’t noticing, stopped caring to notice, and now he’s up to his neck in quicksand with nowhere to turn. Wonwoo was supposed to be the one thing he always noticed, could spot a fleck of dust on from lightyears in the distance. He wishes it still were that way. Though he wants to say sorry, to say anything, his tongue is too heavy with how much he needs to get off it, and he ends up biting down on it while Wonwoo cranks the boat’s engine to life.

The sound of wind whipping around them is a pleasant distraction, and so is the roll of the waves, the clear blue of the sky. Everything but Wonwoo. They start off slow, tracing an arc around the side of the dock and out into a wider expanse of greenish navy waters. Soonyoung glances back as they go, at the tiny frames of people splashing around at the shore until they shrink into invisibility, then turns around to feel the air flush full on his face again. It’s a beautiful day out, the exact kind of day he would love to spend at the beach with Wonwoo. Last year’s Soonyoung would have been thinking of the quickest way to get Wonwoo to kiss him, and this year’s Soonyoung wishes he would do that, but all he can manage to wonder is just how far they’re going.

Far, it turns out, or at least feels like it. Wonwoo jets them out far from the main stretch of beach, until all Soonyoung can see around them is water. There’s so much to be excited about, two of them alone like this, but Soonyoung is still thinking about the boat safety course, the uncommon lateness he didn’t pick up on. Last month, Wonwoo said. If it was last month, then he had to have thought about it before that month. In that case, this trip isn’t as spontaneous as it seemed when they left yesterday, as he chewed his PopTarts in the passenger seat. Of course, it was only ever spontaneous from Soonyoung’s point of view to begin with.

Wonwoo cuts the engine after a while, and everything around them stops. The wind hushes almost eerily quiet, noise of the shore so invisibly far away, and they’re left with blue on every side. Crystal waters, sighing skies. Far above them, a few pillowy clouds fan out in attempt to shield them from the sun’s harshest rays, but they don’t reach quite far enough to touch the light. Soonyoung watches the way their edges dance around the border of the corona and feels like he gets it.

“Here we are,” Wonwoo says with a soft whistle, throwing his arm around. Soonyoung looks for the sign of anything around them even though he knows he won’t find it.

“Which is where?”

“Our spot,” Wonwoo explains, not helpfully. “I brought lunch,” he says then, like it’ll distract Soonyoung from the emptiness enveloping them, and opens a hatch between them to pull out a small Styrofoam cooler. When he pops the lid off and pulls out cold drinks and sandwiches carefully wrapped in plastic, Soonyoung thinks about the way he sat on the bed already awake that morning, shoulders hunched and weary. He must have been up doing more than just thinking.

“Thanks,” Soonyoung says, biting into his sandwich. It’s labeled specifically for him, and it’s got sweet pickles and Thousand Island dressing on it, just the way he’s liked to eat them since he was a kid. Wonwoo has always said it’s gross, and maybe he’s been right all along. Eating it now, Soonyoung feels five years younger, like he’s only known Wonwoo a month or two. He hasn’t eaten a sandwich this way in a long time, and the flavor is so much like that first strong wave of a crush he had back then.

For a while, it seems like Wonwoo is on the cusp of saying something, but his mouth stays focused on eating the sandwich he’s prepared, so Soonyoung mirrors him. He’s always been a fast eater. Before Wonwoo is halfway through his own sandwich, Soonyoung’s has been tucked away, ball of saran wrap glowing with warmth in the middle of his clenched fist. He knows as he sips at his water that this means he has to say something first, but he still hopes Wonwoo will just jump right to where he knows Soonyoung is waiting for him. If only there weren’t unspoken rules about these things.

“So,” he says, a mumble over the low sound of the water, “what are we doing?”

“Eating lunch,” Wonwoo explains, taking another bite. His eyes twinkle the way the do when he knows he’s getting on Soonyoung’s nerves on purpose, and there’s such a distant familiarity to it, the smell of a place Soonyoung hasn’t been in years, the outline of a person he met before he was old enough to remember faces. Wonwoo’s eyes reflect the glowing cyan sky in their even darkness, throw clouds back in tiny circles.

“Come on, Wonwoo.”

“Come on what?”

“Why are we out here right now?” he asks, leaning back. The blue of the sky is almost glaring now, white spurts of clouds cutting through just enough to save his eyes from burning out. “We could eat lunch anywhere. At the hotel, or the beach. In the car.” He waits for Wonwoo to cut him off with a quick answer, but he doesn’t. The sound of chewing is loud. “So why are we out in the middle of the water?”

“Well,” Wonwoo begins after a while, alongside a subdued plastic crinkling that says he’s finished eating, “you like boats, don’t you?”

“Come on.”

“Alright,” Wonwoo says around a thick sigh. When Soonyoung takes his eyes off the sky to find him, he’s already being looked at, hard and weighted. It makes his lungs feel a size too small. “I wanted to talk where there’s nothing around to distract us.”

“Nothing to distract us,” Soonyoung hums. He’s already been using the waves to distract himself this whole time, the sound of the wind, the bright outline of the clouds. Maybe Wonwoo’s been relying on that. “So what are we going to talk about?”

“Now you’re doing it,” Wonwoo says, breath a single thin rush through his lips. Looking into his eyes like this, Soonyoung feels like he’s choking.

“Doing what?”

“Acting like you don’t know,” Wonwoo tells him. He looks at Soonyoung for a long while, the same way he looks at his checkbook balance when it’s not adding up right, the same way he looks at the fuse box when he’s trying to figure out which one went out. “I think we’ve been needing to have this talk for a long time.”

“Huh.” Soonyoung would love to say more, but he’s got a nasty black dread pooling in his stomach from where he thinks Wonwoo is about to take him, and his throat is dangerously close to closing up. In the silence, Wonwoo keeps looking at him, keeps inspecting, sighs again.

“Look, you’re so tensed up. You know what I’m going to say.” He breathes out, shallow, holds on for just a moment longer than he needs to. “I know you don’t like me anymore.”

“That’s not—” Soonyoung cuts himself off. It’s not true. It’s definitely not true. But he feels like he’ll be robbing Wonwoo of something if he answers like that—on reflex, without taking even a beat to think about it. “I like you,” Soonyoung tells him, soft. He feels like a little kid. “You know I do.”

“I know you used to,” Wonwoo says. His eyes never leave Soonyoung’s, drilling straight through his skull, giving him a splintering headache. So much blue around them is starting to make him feel faint. “And I know it’s mostly my fault that you don’t now.”

“Wonwoo…”

“Just listen to me,” he says. It’s a good thing, maybe, because Soonyoung can’t think of the right thing to say to him. It’s a terrible gift that Wonwoo can always be so right about the worst things. “I’ve been watching it happen for a while. Your eyes don’t even look the same anymore when you look at me.”

“What do you mean?” Soonyoung blurts, then bites his lip. Wonwoo looks with pathetic eyes, like he knew Soonyoung would interrupt him there.

“I mean you never look happy,” he says. “Just exhausted. And I’m the tired one.” The clouds wander by so slowly, looking down to eavesdrop, cast shadows anywhere but the boat. “It’s because of my job. I didn’t realize how much I hated it until you stopped asking how my day was.” Soonyoung knows that’s an irrelevant detail. So irrelevant he never would’ve picked up on it himself. The kind of thing Wonwoo will always notice. “I hate that job, too. I hate falling asleep after three in the morning and getting up at five. I hate the way I feel.”

“Wonwoo…”

“I quit my job, Soonyoung.”

The next words waiting to tumble from Soonyoung’s lips dissolve before they have the chance to fall, swept off onto the wind. Quit his job. Wonwoo used to make jokes that he would quit, when he was still liked it enough to pretend, but when he started really hating it, he stopped joking, maybe a little too sure he’d actually follow through. It was too real to say he’d stop going in, so he couldn’t afford to think about it. Now, he doesn’t look like he’s joking. He looks like he might cry.

“What?”

“I quit,” Wonwoo repeats, voice waning. “I put in my two weeks a while ago, and Friday was my last day.” He blows out a long breath, and it mixes into the clouds. “For right now, I’m unemployed.” Even though he looks at Soonyoung expectantly, he can’t think of the right thing to say right now. He doesn’t even know how he should feel about Wonwoo saying that. Everything is tepid oatmeal mixed up in his stomach, stewing pointlessly. “Are you mad?”

“Am I mad?” Soonyoung echoes.

“You probably should be,” Wonwoo tells him. “I was making good money. Great money. It was stupid to quit.”

“If you think it was stupid, why’d you do it?”

“Because I hated it,” he says. The way he says _hate_ is so strong, too raw, and Soonyoung feels it in the back of his throat. “And I’m tired of putting all my time into something that’s never going to give me anything back.”

“It gives you money back,” Soonyoung tries to console him. Wonwoo’s face cracks into a razor-edged grin.

“Money’s nothing,” Wonwoo says. A passing wave rocks the boat beneath them, blue confusion that never ends. “It’s nothing. I don’t want a thirty-room mansion or a Ferrari. You don’t have to be rich to pay rent.” He whistles a little on his next breath, turns to look at the sky and sinks down in his seat. “Money really is nothing.”

Soonyoung frowns. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t know what I want you to say, either.” Wonwoo barks out one laugh that dissipates into overheated mist in front of him. “I just want to know if you still love me.”

“Still love you?”

“And don’t just say that you do,” Wonwoo adds before Soonyoung can rattle that very thing off, turns cautious eyes Soonyoung’s direction. “You need to think about it. Seriously. And if you don’t…” He blows out a breath, eyes shining. Tears? Seawater? Soonyoung can’t tell the difference anymore. “Then there’s no point. We should just call it quits.”

“Call it quits,” Soonyoung mumbles.

He’s wondered a lot about that recently, calling it quits. A time or two, he’s thought they ought to. They’ve grown apart. They’ve been together so long nothing is the same anymore, nothing is the way he wants it to be. In some ways, Wonwoo has become someone who just exists around him, lurking in the blurred edges where his vision won’t quite focus, hunched over the edge of the mattress in the early morning. Soonyoung isn’t sure when they last kissed, and he doesn’t remember what it tastes like. He never wanted to admit it, but he doesn’t even know if he misses that.

Looking at Wonwoo, though, there’s so much he sees. The lines around his mouth that never used to be there, the darkness beneath his eyes, the downward turn of his slight resting frown. If he pushes his mind out far enough, he might be able to convince himself this isn’t Wonwoo at all, just some handsome stranger who strikes a chord of familiarity. In the eyes, though, are memories. The first date they went on. The time they went out dancing for New Years. His hair. It’s longer now than he usually keeps it, and it reminds Soonyoung of when they were in college, before Wonwoo sold his old skateboard. His lips. The first vacation they went on together, the rain that fell when they were camping. The line of his jaw. Their first anniversary, the stray cat Wonwoo took care of for two weeks.

When he’s about to open his mouth, he recalls the time Wonwoo got his wisdom teeth taken out. They’d already begun living together by then, and Soonyoung took him to and from the dentist’s office. Under the influence of painkillers, Wonwoo had been mostly quiet, but every now and then he would say something that didn’t make much sense, ask a childish question and not listen for the answer.

“Are you going somewhere?” he’d asked after Soonyoung led him inside and sat him down on the couch. His cheeks were still swollen, cotton stuffed inside them, and he watched Soonyoung bustle through the living room with a gloss over his eyes.

“Work,” Soonyoung said, and Wonwoo snorted.

“Boo,” he crowed, smacking his palms on the cushions beside him. “Work stinks. Don’t go.”

“I have to,” Soonyoung told him. It was hard not to fall over laughing. Wonwoo looked like a huge, gangly baby, pouting at him.

“Boo,” he repeated.

“I’ll be back later.”

“You have to come back later,” Wonwoo said seriously, sliding down until his head bumped against the wall. Soonyoung still remembers how much that sound made him worry. “I’ll be lonely.”

“You’ll be okay.”

“I won’t cry,” Wonwoo said then. He definitely looked more like he was trying to convince himself. “I won’t.”

“I know you won’t.”

“You’re the most special person, Soonyoung.” Wonwoo’s eyes were already closed when Soonyoung looked back over at him, arms crossed over his chest in defensive fatigue. “”The most most special.” He yawned a little, winced at the pain in parts of his gums the anesthesia wasn’t touching. “You have to come home from work.”

Thinking about that again now makes Soonyoung’s chest ache. When Wonwoo was in his right mind, he sometimes said things like that, but never so clearly. He usually liked to pepper genuine sentiment in among a slew of things that didn’t matter, a waterfall of worthless jokes. Soonyoung knows it’s because he doesn’t like to feel vulnerable. Looking at him, he’s vulnerable again. Soonyoung wants to reach out for his hand, but he feels so far. He’s so close, but the ocean spreads dark between them, deep and endless and terrifying. In the back of his throat, Soonyoung chokes. He just misses him.

“So?” Wonwoo asks, rippling the unnerving stillness of the quiet drowning them. His voice bounces off everything, deeper than Soonyoung ever thought it was, softer, more careful. He looks like he already knows what Soonyoung wants to say, but he keeps his lips pressed together, eyebrows pulled low.

“Of course I still love you,” Soonyoung says quietly. Wonwoo’s shoulders tense.

“Don’t just say that,” he says.

“I’m not just saying it. I mean it.”

“I need you to mean it.”

“I do.”

Silence again. If only the water were louder, or the clouds more impending. The sun watches them from its perch, oblivious to the words, burning down regardless. The wind runs straight through them, shakes Wonwoo’s outline with every gust, and the boat doesn’t move.

“What now?” Soonyoung says. “What else do you want me to say?”

“Just be honest with me.”

“You think I’m not being honest?” His hand is lunging out before he realizes, groping through the air until it’s clasped somewhere on Wonwoo’s arm. He has to lean out of the seat to hold on like this, but at least it feels like they aren’t so far apart. “Do you want me to say I don’t love you anymore?”

“I want you to be happy,” Wonwoo says. A piercing seagull’s cry slices through the air, cuts the humidity into ribbons.  “That’s it. I want you to say whatever lets you be happy.” Soonyoung knows he should take a little more time to think, knows that’s what Wonwoo wants him to do, but he’s thought enough already. If he spends another second on it, he’ll suffocate.

“I love you,” he says. “I want to be happy with you.”

“I quit my job,” Wonwoo repeats, like it matters anymore. “I don’t have anything right now.” He shakes Soonyoung’s hand off his arm to press their palms together, thread their fingers into even lace. It’s different when Soonyoung is paying attention to it. He doesn’t remember Wonwoo’s palm being so rough or so sweaty, so scarily cold. “I just want to fix things.”

“Then let’s fix them.”

“Can you like me again?”

“Of course.” What he should say is _I like you now_. What he should say is _probably_. His brain never works fast enough for the answers he knows are right. Wonwoo’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, and Soonyoung feels like it’s been three lifetimes since he saw a smile so full.

“I missed looking at you,” he says, “when we’re both awake.”

“I missed you, too.”

“I’ll look for a new job soon,” he promises. Something about the way he says it is just like old paint flaking off a vase, scattering into bits on dusty hardwood. Soonyoung thumbs at the back of his hand.

“It’s okay to take a break for a while.”

Blue ocean yawns all around them, and Soonyoung starts to forget it. He forgets the boat under them, the beach waiting so far off in the distance, the pastel shades of the bed and breakfast where Wonwoo’s car still sits idle. When he looks at Wonwoo, he gets back down to the beginning, the way looking at Wonwoo used to make him feel. It can still make him feel that way, he reasons. If he lets himself, he can still feel that way. That’s already enough to hold the bridge together, enough to take a step. Maybe someday he’ll think again about Wonwoo asking to marry him and get the good kind of butterflies, the right sort of headrush.

When he blinks, Wonwoo kisses him. It’s been so long. He forgot the feeling, the way it’s always made him feel. Before he even reopens his eyes, he sees water rising all around him, a warm and unfaltering expanse of navy wrapping him up. Wonwoo’s hands hold firm at his shoulders, run warmth over his skin, an earthbound cloud. He feels the blossoms of a sunburn running across his cheeks, and it reminds him that they ought to be getting back soon. He’d like to spend a little time at the beach.

It’s still just a touch awkward to look at Wonwoo from so close a range, but Soonyoung is getting himself back into the groove. Light traces of rose dust over Wonwoo’s cheeks, and somehow, they make his face look lighter, less bogged down. Maybe it’s not the sun at all, but something else in the air, in the water. Maybe it’s none of it. Whatever it is, Soonyoung is glad to see it. More than that, he’s glad they’re moving somewhere again, somewhere with balance, somewhere they want to be.

Wonwoo moves his hand to turn the boat’s ignition, but stops short. Soonyoung doesn’t mind it. It’s nice sometimes to just spend a little time, he thinks. He wants to close his eyes and feel the water float by, listen to Wonwoo’s breathing over the waves. It’s about time they spent a little time. Far off, along the distant shore, waves continue to crash in foamy rhythm.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!! i'm nearly two weeks late on this and it's maybe the worst thing i have ever written in my life and i'm sorry. i have no excuses. everything i write is so sad lately and i've been so busy and it's just all gone to shit. nevertheless, thank you so much for reading, and i hope even a small part of you was able to enjoy even one line in this (or at least not feel like it was a waste of your time to read). happy birthday to soonwoonet! make sure you read all the other works in the collection, as they are definitely better than this one. thanks much again for sticking with me til here!


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